


Transitional Space

by diversionary_tactician



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: American Sign Language, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers Family, Avengers Family Dinner, Avengers Movie Night, Avengers Tower, Blankets, Comfort Object, Deaf, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, IronHawk - Freeform, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers (2012), Security Blanket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4132245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diversionary_tactician/pseuds/diversionary_tactician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The motion and the familiar surroundings already had Clint halfway to sleep.  The blanket’s threadbare brush against his skin was what he imagined when he envisioned safety.  He hadn’t anticipated how comforting it would be to have Tony in his arms here.  His room had become his inner sanctum, entirely fortified against any who might dare to enter.  And now he’d broken it open to allow Tony inside.  'You know I’m a billionaire, right?' Tony murmured into his chest.  'I can afford to buy you a decent blanket.'  . . .No one but Natasha knew about the childhood trifle’s sentimental value.  'I like this one just fine,' he yawned."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I write for my own entertainment and education, and derive no financial benefit. I imagine that Marvel Studios owns the copyrights and trademarks for The Avengers. I do not hold any copyrights or trademarks associated with Marvel or the characters, setting, or story lines depicted therein. However, I imagine those that do would appreciate your patronage.

It happened in the aftermath of battle as so many questionable decisions often did. Tony was almost too exhausted to stay on his feet once he was released from the confines of his suit, yet still he’d managed to grab a bottle of whiskey from the counter top in his left hand while having his right arm slung across Clint’s shoulders to support his weight. They were laughing about something, giddy with exhaustion and half stumbling. Tony smelled of sweat and WD40. Ordinarily Clint wouldn’t have found the scent so alluring, but blamed it on his dog-tiredness. He led them both back toward Tony’s bedroom so he could deposit the man there before heading back to his perch, the hammock that served as his bunk here at Avengers Tower. He was far too tired to trudge back to the SHIELD barracks tonight. Though in honesty, he rarely slept in the barracks any longer.

Tony was taking another long draw on the liquor bottle. He stumbled and Clint’s weight shifted with him, nearly toppling them both over and dissolving Clint into a fresh fit of laughter. “Will you quit it,” he chided, out of breath half from taking Tony’s weight and half from the stich in his side brought on by laughing harder and longer than he was accustomed to. Tomorrow every muscle would ache, but for now exhaustion had pushed him beyond the possibility of true rest into a strange adrenaline high. 

“You want a drink?” Tony asked holding the bottle to his lips. Clint accepted the drag on the bottle, mostly to keep Tony from imbibing any more than he already had. The whiskey burned going down and only increased the difficulty in dragging an exhausted Iron Man to bed. They stumbled through the door to Tony’s suite, which Jarvis opened for them automatically and Clint asked if he needed help into his nightie. It was a joke, at least Clint thought he’d intended it to be. 

“Anxious to get me out of my trousers, huh, Hawk?” Tony replied, and even though it could easily be written off as a joke there was a kind of fire behind the words that made Clint’s breath catch. Something shifted in the air between them. Tony’s eyes went dark and the bottle hit the ground with a thud, Tony’s other arm coming up around his shoulders. He tasted of whiskey and warmth. It was rough and raucous and perfect. It wasn’t supposed to be the beginning of anything, as drunk with fatigue, adrenaline and liquor as they were. Yet it was, and that was perfect too. They always tussled in Tony’s absurdly lavish bed. Clint felt as though he was going to slide off the silk sheets. Tony laughed at him when he confided it, and Clint took a playful swat at his ass, but the next day the silk sheets were gone and they didn’t return. Still, he never spent the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing Clint Barton a bit recently and started wondering what it would be like if Clint had a sentimental attachment to something from his past. I wanted to try and avoid writing Clint in a way that suggested stunted emotional development. So I've written a story about Hawkeye and his attachment to an item from his childhood, while trying to maintain an emotionally mature perspective. No beta readers on this one so please let me know if I missed any edits. The entire story is written and complete. I've posted the first two chapters and will post the next four one chapter each Sunday for the four weeks to keep things interesting. Please leave comments.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint wasn’t ashamed to admit that it was the best sex of his life. But in the beginning he was tentative to acknowledge the something more that seemed to follow. Tony never stopped being a cavalier dickhead. Honestly Clint thought it might freak him out if Tony’s personality shifted suddenly. Yet, he noticed that Tony began to gift him with a number of small kindnesses – a constant stock of the Coney Island knishes that Clint had loved during his carnival days, a sling of new arrows that were lighter and more perfectly balanced, and a file on Tony’s computer on how to learn sign language that Clint was certain he hadn’t been intended to see but that had been accessed several times daily. Clint was never quite sure how to acknowledge these efforts, and when he’d groaned with delight over a steaming knish Tony had seemed simultaneously embarrassed and delighted.

It was with some trepidation that Clint invited Tony back to his bed one night after a particularly rough mission. Neither was in much condition for physical activity, and Clint craved the familiarity of his hammock, and something else, a small something that stayed tucked away from prying eyes. 

His bedroom at the Tower wasn’t anything that might be called traditional. It had a sparse design, a mostly empty room with a single trunk and a ladder across the room from the door, so someone would have to expose him or herself completely to reach it. Above the entirety of the room was a vast tension wire grid two stories up. Hanging in one corner above the grid was a hammock that contained his most cherished possessions, his bow and a tattered length of soft cloth that he’d had since before a car crash sent his life spiraling down this trajectory. Home hadn’t been good, even young as he was Clint could remember that, but there was a sense at one time that he had a permanent place there and he hadn’t known that feeling again until just recently. 

Clint led Tony up the ladder. Stark wasn’t nearly as comfortable navigating the wire as he was but he’d never let Tony fall. Once they were settled in the hammock he attempted to cover the two of them with the scrap of cloth. In the best of circumstances it failed to cover Clint completely. With two of them in the hammock it was comically inadequate for the task. Still he buried his nose in it and inhaled deeply of the familiar scent. Tony’s head came to rest just below his collarbone and he slung one leg over Clint making the hammock shift and sway.

The motion and the familiar surroundings already had Clint halfway to sleep. The blanket’s threadbare brush against his skin was what he imagined when he envisioned safety. He hadn’t anticipated how comforting it would be to have Tony in his arms here. His room had become his inner sanctum, entirely fortified against any who might dare to enter. And now he’d broken it open to allow Tony inside. “You know I’m a billionaire, right?” Tony murmured into his chest. “I can afford to buy you a decent blanket.” 

With his hearing aids out and resting in a small pouch stitched into the side of the hammock he had to readjust their positions and ask Tony to repeat himself so he could read Tony’s lips in the dim light. When Tony spoke it was slower and more deliberate and Clint understood him just fine. He was too tired to be embarrassed that Tony had noticed his blanket. No one but Natasha knew about the childhood trifle’s sentimental value. “I like this one just fine,” he yawned.

“You know I’ve always wanted to do it in a hammock,” Tony offered, clearly not recognizing the significance of Clint’s refusal, but not overly committed to the subject of subsidizing new bedding for their resident archer. 

An ungracious scoff escaped him, “Yeah, a hammock and just about everywhere else, I bet,” he quipped. “Tomorrow,” he promised, drawing Tony back down onto his chest, effectively closing the conversation, and pressing a lazy kiss into Tony’s hair before lapsing into sleep.

It wasn’t every night, but he no longer startled at the sounds of footsteps crossing the room to ascend to his perch – and Tony’s guess about the hammock was right, the rocking motion made sex that much more intense. Tony made a bunch of jokes about dating an acrobat around the team. Steve blushed crimson, Natasha smiled knowingly, Bruce clapped him on the back in quiet congratulations, and Thor loudly proclaimed that his woman must provide a demonstration of her craft as Asgaard had no such art. Clint suspected that one of the others had taken him aside for an explanation later, as Thor found him the next day in a crowded hallway and declared his pleasure at the Avian Brother and the Metal Man’s coupling. It was strangely heartwarming even if it did make Clint want to die of embarrassment.

Things were blissful, and every time that Clint had known bliss he’d found nothing but heartbreak when the wool was pulled from his eyes. But this time. . .this time. . .it seemed real and safe despite their dangerous lifestyle. A broad wooden dresser was installed beside his trunk and contained some of Tony’s things. Tony became adept at navigating the tension wire grid and one night after Clint had finished inside him following a long enthusiastic session, Tony had signed /goodnight/. To the archer it said so much more than a declaration of love ever could have. Clint pulled him into a long passionate kiss.

For the next week Clint felt as though he was walking two stories above the floor all day long. He swore there was even more perk in his shooting elbow and more spring in his step as they fought off some kid who could call birds to do his bidding. The battle had been messy, and they came back covered in feathers and bird shit. The team made a bunch of jokes about him because of his call name, but Clint couldn’t find it in himself to be too upset about it. Not when Tony signed /shower/ at him with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows on the Quinjet ride back to Avengers Tower.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here it is, chapter three, as promised.

It happened on a Tuesday. Natasha had spent the last two hours kicking his ass around the gym. When she finally reached a hand down to help him up, signaling the end of their training session, he was excited for a shower, some dinner, and bed. They sat around the table eating Ethiopian food because, like any good tourist, Thor insisted that he must taste the highlights of Midgardian Cuisine. Steve had muttered something about eating more appealing field rations and Natasha had twice slapped Tony’s hands away from her portion of injera. The only person truly excited about the meal had been Bruce, who had spoken animatedly about each item on the communal plate and instructed them on what to expect of the various kinds of wat. 

Yet despite the easy camaraderie of the evening, Clint could sense a sort of tension in Tony, an excited anticipation and an eagerness to escape the rest of the team. It was puzzling, because he knew that Tony privately savored these easy times spent together as a group no matter how much he loudly bitched about them. Still, Tony’s apparent desire to get him alone made him feel oddly important, and he was more than willing to decline the suggestion of a movie following dinner, begging off for bed. Tony stayed to oversee the handling of the DVD player, but Clint got the odd feeling that he was hanging back on purpose.

He could tell that something was off when he entered his room based on the way his hammock was hanging, like the weight distribution had been altered somehow. He felt naked without his bow and quiver, but he pulled out his Heckler & Koch P30, aiming up as he tiptoed to the ladder and ascended it with lightening speed half expecting to see someone in his bed, or perhaps some incendiary device. Yet instead when he reached the hammock he found his blanket missing and a colorfully wrapped package in his bunk. He picked it up and stared at it dumbly. His pulse raced harder than when he'd thought there was an enemy in his midst. Where was his blanket? Surely no one had broken into a Tower full of professional fighters, and even if they had, the Tower was full of expensive trinkets and even an arsenal of game changing weapons. The tattered blanket had value to no one but himself. With a sense of dread and foreboding he opened the package to find a brand new blanket inside. It was midnight blue with some kind of rich lining. He felt sick. This had Tony’s name written all over it.

It was as if thinking of the man made him appear. Suddenly there were footsteps on the ladder up to the hammock and Tony was behind him. Still on high alert, the handgun was pointing at him when Tony reached the top rung of the ladder. The naked excitement on Tony's face melted to a look of concern when he looked from the barrel of the archer's gun to his expression. At least he had the good sense to remain silent, simply raising an inquisitive eyebrow until Clint holstered his sidearm. Clint faced the one person he’d trusted enough to share his sanctuary with, the offending article still clasped in his hands. “What did you do?” he demanded, his look hard and flat. 

“It’s a present,” Tony replied, clearly attempting to bolster his enthusiasm once again. “That’s alpaca wool, the most high end blanket on the market that isn’t made of silk, and it’s three times the size of the old one. Why don’t you open it up?” he suggested, clearly sensing that he’d entered into dangerous territory, but not sure how.

Clint’s eyes narrowed dangerously and he put the package down on the hammock. “Where is my blanket, Tony?” he asked, his voice soft, but dangerous.

“I got rid of it,” he said casually, as though he’d was talking about removing last week’s trash instead of Clint’s childhood treasure. “It was ancient, Clint, and tiny. I thought you’d be happy to have something new.” Clint dropped the new blanket back on the hammock as though it was toxic. 

“For someone who doesn’t like people touching his stuff you have no regard for other people’s things,” Clint snapped angrily. Tony looked hurt and quietly outraged. Even when Clint was fighting bad guys it was rare that he felt actual malice toward them. There were exceptions of course - the fight with Loki had been especially personal. Yet, he rarely felt white hot rage at his enemies the way he did now toward Tony, a man that he trusted and damn near loved. He found himself half-signing half-speaking, too furious to contain his hands the way he’d trained himself to for the sake of others in conversation. His movements were sharp and wide. “What gave you the right?” he raged. “You come in and meddle in everything and leave a path of destruction wherever you go. That was mine. It wasn’t yours to throw away!” he ranted furious. 

He could feel the heat creeping up his neck and was certain that his face had gotten red. For a moment he thought that he was going to throw a punch at Tony. Ordinarily the lost dumbfounded look on Tony’s face would have upset him, but now it was simply fuel stoking his anger. The words clearly landed their mark, and Tony’s raw reaction was accessible for only a moment before he adopted a hard impassive expression. “How was I supposed to know I was fucking a six year old with a security blanket?” Tony hissed. “I guess I’ll know better than to try doing something nice for you,” he added a touch of betrayal mixed in with all the hurt and anger.

The attack on his maturity was a particularly soft spot for him. He stalked past Tony, barely restraining the urge to drive a fist into the man’s solar plexus on his way out. 

Apparently his unwillingness to continue fighting troubled Tony more than any harsh words he could have said. “Where are you going?” Tony asked. 

/Somewhere my space actually means something/ Clint signed, grabbing his bow before descending the ladder and fleeing the room. He needed to get away from Tony before he did something he really would regret.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments!

Tony was up and pacing at three am with his gut roiling. He wanted to blame it on indigestion from one of the unidentified piles of spicy stuff he’d eaten at dinner, but suspected it had more to do with one outrageously handsome archer. It hadn’t exactly escaped Tony that he could be a handful. Pepper had told him as much about a thousand times and he’d lost the romantic side of his relationship to Rodney after one too many “infuriating incidents.” He knew who he was, knew that he was difficult to put up with long term, but he had tried to show Clint that he wasn’t taking this thing they had for granted.

Clint always seemed to appreciate the small gestures like keeping his favorite foods around, or creating some new invention that he could nock in his bow. He never said thank you in so many words, but his eyes would go soft and he’d touch Tony’s arm or lay a hand on his lower back, or kiss him long and languid and slow. Tony had just been doing something nice, buying him a gift that cost more than some people made in a month. But he’d obviously screwed up because Clint never looked at anyone like he’d looked at Tony that night, not even the people he ended up shooting.

Footsteps in the doorway pulled him from his somber musing. “Guess you’re glad I didn’t let you steal any of my dinner after all,” Natasha said raising an eyebrow at his vaguely nauseated expression. Tony shrugged sullenly. She turned her back on him a moment to peruse the selection at the bar and selected a dusty looking bottle of Glenfiddich pouring two fingers into each of two clean glasses. 

“Not the food then,” she concluded, sliding one of the glasses across the table toward Tony. He picked it up and sipped at it gingerly. Even the scotch tasted bitter. 

“What are you doing up at three in the morning?” Tony asked sourly, suspecting he may already know the answer and not like it. 

“I might have seen Barton storming out,” she suggested apologetically. It was never pleasant witnessing the aftermath of a lover’s spat. With so many damaged people all in one place the fallout from an avenger-sized domestic could spread blocks, maybe even level a small neighborhood. Best to handle it quickly, Natasha supposed. “You want to talk about it?” she asked. She was using that seductive tone on him that he’d sometimes heard her use with criminals in interrogation. He had to admit, it was very pretty, like the soft sweet petals on a razor-sharp thorned rose. 

“No” he answered honestly, turning his gaze back on his drink.

“Suit yourself,” she replied, her tone light and sardonic as she took her drink and headed toward the door. 

“I bought him a gift,” Tony confessed to her slender shoulders just before she passed over the threshold between kitchen and living space. She halted in her tracks and turned around to scrutinize him with eyes too old for the face that held them. 

“What did you try to buy him?” she asked in vaguely-amused astonishment. “A threesome?” she suggested, considering what gift might be so outrageous as to elicit such an extreme response from her generally level-headed and tolerant best friend.

“Huh,” Tony remarked, genuinely taken aback. “I’m surprised I didn’t think of that actually.” It was a clever idea. He toyed with several mental images, several imaginary arrangements of bodies, all of them tantalizing and centered on Clint. Yet Natasha obviously didn't think Clint would appreciate such a gesture. Too bad really, it was an excellent idea for a gift. “I just bought him a new blanket,” Tony confessed exasperated confusion in his tone. “He’s been sleeping with this cheap old rag and I figured that considering it’s basically the one possession he owns he might want something that wasn’t a piece of crap,” he said, feeling somewhat vindicated now that he’d actually gotten to justify himself to someone who hadn’t interrupted.

Natasha looked kind of sad and nodded. She should have figured as much. She was silent for a while, long enough to make Tony uncomfortable. “Lives like ours don’t allow for much,” she admitted. Suddenly Tony felt ill at ease with the self-righteous indignation he’d felt a moment earlier. He saw her hand move to stroke over at a necklace she was wearing. It seemed an almost unconscious movement, not unlike the way Clint buried his face in the threadbare blanket at night before they went to sleep. Suddenly he felt sick for a whole other reason.

“I asked him about it once. You don’t go on that many missions with a guy without realizing when something’s important to him. He was good at keeping it discreet. I understand some people gave him a hard time for holding onto it. But he’d had it since he was a young kid. Said he got off easy; his big brother got attached to a stuffed hippo,” she offered with a wry smile. There was little humor in it. “Except he wouldn’t be mad if you’d just gotten him a new blanket,” she puzzled out. The pieces fit together in an ugly pattern. “So what did you do with the old one?” she asked. There was a shrewd, slightly accusatory edge to her tone. Yet, she recognized that Tony wasn’t an assassin or a soldier. He had a skyscraper in Manhattan and a mansion in Malibu full of his things. He didn’t understand how much more each possession was worth when someone had so few to their name. His intentions had obviously been honest. Natasha felt confident that Clint would see that in time, with a little help.

“I’m going to find it,” he decided.

“Good man,” she replied. “In the meantime maybe I can talk Barton down,” she suggested. Tony barely heard the offer, however, as he was already headed off toward his lab.

Natasha tossed back the rest of her drink. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the venue.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos! I hope you enjoy the latest chapter.

At first Natasha considered that Clint was likely to go back to the barracks at Shield but angry as he was he probably wasn’t in any mood for sleep. She considered the city, places that Clint might go, impulsive things he might do if he was hurt enough. Then again, this wasn’t Tony. Clint might brood but he wasn’t likely to go on a bender. Natasha had been on the Avengers Tower helipad many times but she’d never been on the proper roof. Seven floors above the helipad lay the highest point of Avengers Tower, a thin strip of roof, inaccessible from the inside of the building. It took Natasha almost twenty minutes to scale the curved narrow wall. Clint better damn well be up here, she thought.

She was not disappointed when she saw the hunched figure of Clint standing on the narrow platform playing with his bow. His arrows were all inside so he clearly wasn’t intending to kill anyone at the moment. Thank goodness for small mercies, Natasha thought. When he sensed that Natasha had reached the top Clint readjusted his position, sitting down with his legs dangling over the edge. He didn’t look at her. “You’re getting slow Nat; I did it in five.” 

She didn’t let Clint push her away with his derisive humor, instead carefully coming to sit beside him. She looked less comfortable than he did with the height at which they were perched. “Thought this sort of brooding was more the realm of bats than hawks,” she teased. The dark brooding figure of Batman was a regular joke in their little group after Jarvis’ attempt at communication with the possible recruit had been returned with the simple four word communiqué: “Not in this lifetime.” Clint didn’t even try to feign amusement. This was serious then. Bat versus hawk jokes usually killed it.

“Guess his boyfriend’s probably less of an ass,” she prodded lightly. Clint shrugged. That was the first time anyone had actually put a label on his and Tony’s relationship. It seemed ill fitting like the weight of a crossbow in his hands. Cross as he was he wasn’t certain that it would matter long. The illusion of trustworthiness was obviously just that. Nothing was permanent. This was a good reminder not to let himself get attached to anything, nothing as insignificant as a scrap of cloth or as intricate as a man. “Stark’s arrogant” she said plainly. There wasn’t much bite in her tone.

“No shit” Clint agreed bitterly. Arrogant? That was the understatement of the fucking century.

“He’s a narcissist and a control freak,” she added for good measure.

Clint nodded but felt a touch of the anger going out of him. Tony was all those things but he was a lot of other things as well, courageous and kind. Clint was still righteously pissed off at Tony but hearing his negative qualities laid out so clinically when he wasn’t there to answer the accusations made him feel strangely protective.

“He loves you,” she concluded with the same factual tone. Clint sighed heavily but didn’t try to refute the statement. It was a start.

They sat up there in silence for a while. Clint wasn’t ready to talk about it, but the truth was that morning was just rising and the early dew made the air especially cold. He may be able to out climb Natasha, but he couldn’t outwait her when she had her mind set on something. “You know what the fight was about?” Clint asked. She nodded. 

“I let him into my space,” he confided, his tone making it clear that that was a mistake. 

She shrugged. “Before tonight he was a pretty big improvement on the place though, wasn’t he?” she asked, already knowing the answer based on the way Clint had been floating on air for the past week. He shrugged sullenly, not yet ready to admit it. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her body heat. This was what a sibling should be like, Clint thought sadly as he remembered his own brother.

“It’s stupid. . . .I do know that,” he confessed. “It’s just some cloth, it shouldn’t bother me. It’s not like Tony pawned Mjölnir or anything. It didn’t have any special powers or even do its job all that well. But when they took us off to the group home it’s the only thing that I really got to keep. The rest of our stuff was sold off or stolen. There were three things that no one wanted Barney, me, and the damn blanket. Through the Carson Carnival and Coney Island and Crossfire and SHIELD and. . .,” he confided trailing off at a loss “Nothing is ever permanent. If this one thing couldn’t be permanent how can anything else be?” he asked brokenly. In this position, Clint couldn’t see her face properly and the wind was loud enough at this elevation that she could see Clint was mostly lip reading. She settled for giving his shoulder a supportive squeeze. 

After a long time she looked at him again, released him from her embrace so they could talk properly. “It can’t” she replied plainly, “in our line of work you know that, but giving up a good thing just because it isn’t forever, that’s going to lead you nowhere fast. I don’t like him. But you obviously do. I’m still here, so maybe some things last longer than you think,” she suggested. “He’s beating himself up pretty hard. Maybe you want to talk to him,” she suggested, getting to her feet and preparing to descend from the roof. “But I don’t think anyone would take exception if you made him squirm for a few more hours,” she added with a devious smirk “his ego can take it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of Transitional Space. Thanks again for all the comments and kudos! I'm considering some additional oneshots that are consistent with this 'verse. If you have any ideas for what you'd like to see please leave suggestions/requests in the comments.

The sun had risen fully by the time that Clint ventured back inside. His joints were stiff from the cold and the rigid position he’d maintained. He hadn’t slept but he’d been trained for that and never slept well without his blanket anyway. He had no intention of going to bed. Besides he wasn’t ready to face the expensive replacement that likely still sat in his bunk. He searched the Tower, looking for Tony. He knew his accusation that Tony left a path of destruction in his wake must have hit the man hard, as he’d intended it to in the moment. Now, however, he was a little worried that he’d landed his mark too directly, that he’d caused more harm than was warranted. 

One glass tumbler sat empty on the granite countertop and Clint could smell the remnants of scotch in the glass. Clint didn’t often talk to Jarvis. He couldn’t lip read the AI and he always thought it was creepy when the computer program hacked directly into his hearing aids. Now wasn’t the time for reservations, however. “Jarvis, where’s Tony?” he asked the room aloud.

“Good morning Agent Barton,” Jarvis piped up in an unreasonably upbeat tone. Despite numerous requests that the AI call him Clint when they were at the Tower, it never seemed to take. Logically Clint knew it must have been some kind of glitch in Jarvis’ programming, but he couldn’t help stalking it up to stubbornness at least in part. 

“Mr. Stark is currently out on a mission,” Jarvis explained vaguely.

His eyes narrowed and his breath hitched. This was worse than he thought. Tony drunk, upset, and at large in the suit could do a hell of a lot of damage. “No alert’s gone out. What’s the mission,” Clint asked with obvious trepidation. 

“I’ve been instructed to keep those details confidential. Would you like me to alert you when he returns?” Jarvis asked.

Shit. Shit! “I’d like you to patch me through to his comm,” Clint requested.

“I’m afraid Mr. Stark has asked not to be disturbed. Shall I alert you then when he returns?” this time the cheerful tone behind the question was more forceful, laced with a saccharine apologeticness that made Clint frustrated and wary at once. For the moment Tony was fully offline, didn’t want to be found. If Jarvis had emotions, something that Clint still had a hard time wrapping his head around, he’d have sworn that the AI was pissed off at him and taking it out in the most passive aggressive way possible.

Clint grabbed his sidearm and a coat and took to the streets, scanning the skies and pounding the pavement. He scoured the nastiest bars around, to find and try and reason with his errant super hero boyfriend and if that failed, to bodily drag his ass back home to sober up. He stayed out a few hours past even the latest last call and paced the Tower with such ferocity upon returning that even Natasha seemed wary of getting to close to him in his agitated condition. The day passed in agonizing slowness and Clint put in a call to Coulson asking for help in tracking Tony down. By evening there were dark bruises under his eyes from the lack of sleep even despite his training. 

Well into the night he was startled into motion by the voice of Jarvis in his ears. “Mr. Stark has just arrived on the Helipad, Agent Barton.” He raced up to the helipad. The scent of Tony reached him long before the sight. The helipad reeked of decay as though a landfill had vomited tony up onto the platform. The suit was covered in slime and waste but in one hand Tony clutched the tattered remains of his blanket. It was far worse for the wear than Clint remembered, torn now and stained, but the sight of Tony clutching it in the palm of his suited hand like it was the most important thing in the world caused a lump to form in Clint’s throat. Nothing lasted forever, but maybe some things stuck around long enough to develop a deeper meaning. Maybe some things stayed long enough to make an irreparable mark. Those things were worth having.

Clint realized that he’d frozen there, feet from Tony at the sight of Iron Man clutching his childhood treasure. Tony must have mistaken the look on his face for something else. /It’s the best I could do/ he signed, the metal suit limiting the fluidity of his movement but any hint of lingering anger was dispelled at the simple gesture. Tony released the shield on his mask and his face became visible as it retracted. He visibly winced at his own odor. 

They looked at one another. Tony knew that he should apologize for the violation of Clint’s space and his things and for what he’d said, assaulting Clint’s maturity. Clint knew he should apologize for his overreaction, and for suggesting that Tony destroyed everything he cared about. Neither had ever excelled at apologies and after a moment they looked away from one another. The silence seemed to be harder on Tony than it was on Clint. He struggled weakly for something to say. “For my next project I’m thinking about doing something to solve our country’s massive landfill problem,” Tony suggested with a weary sort of humor. 

Clint wanted to be annoyed that Tony was trying to make light of everything, but the worry had eaten at him, and he felt strangely light now that it was gone. He laughed despite himself. Clint closed the gap between them in several broad strides. In the suit Tony was a bit taller than him but despite the suit’s resistance he found it easy to pull Tony into a vicelike embrace, arms clasped around his broad shoulders. As metal arms closed around his back Clint was struck with the odd thought that there was more than one thing that gave him a feeling of safety and home.

They separated a hair, enough so that they were face to face. The tension had gone out of both of them. Tony held the blanket out to him and he took it. “You think we can put this in the wash before we take it back to bed?” Tony asked with feigned horror at the thought that Clint might be intent on taking the damn near toxic blanket back to his hammock as is. Though there was a deeper question there, a quiet request for reassurance that Tony was still welcome there, in what had become their bed. Clint smiled. “Yeah, You and it both!” Clint exclaimed. Now he was covered in slime and would need a shower too, he realized, with a roll of his eyes. Then he could get everything back to where it belonged, his security blanket, for as long as it lasted.


End file.
